Increasing worldwide demand for compound semiconductor devices has driven the development of high throughput, cost effective, and reliable production techniques and equipment. Compound semiconductors are comprised of a combination of group-III elements, such as B, Al, Ga, In and Tl, and group-V elements, such as N, P, As, Sb and Bi. A typical example of III-V compound semiconductor devices is light emitting diodes (LEDs) using InP, GaP, GaAs, AlInGaP and GaN.
Among theses LEDs, blue LEDs consist of multiple Gallium Nitride-based layers epitaxially grown on a silicon carbide or sapphire wafer substrate. Silicon carbide wafers have been diced using high-precision saws. Sapphire wafer die separation has been performed by mechanical scribing with a diamond tool. The wafer can then be cleaved along the scribed lines via a fracturing machine. The extreme hardness of blue LED substrates and the small LED die size create significant problems for both saw dicing and mechanical scribing, including low die yield, low throughput, and high operating costs. The brittle substrates, such as GaP and GaAs, also show low productivity due to excessive edge chipping by the mechanical scribe and break and the saw dicing processes. Moreover, the conventional processes require relatively large cutting areas, reducing the number of devices on a wafer.
Scribing with ultra violet (UV) lasers has emerged as an alternative method for separating compound semiconductor wafers. Excimer lasers and diode pumped solid-state (DPSS) lasers are two major light sources for UV laser scribing. When short duration UV laser light pulses are tightly focused onto the wafer surface, each pulse is absorbed into a sub-micron thick surface layer, which then vaporizes. The vaporized material carries away the energy of the interaction, minimizing heat transfer to the surrounding material. This process is known as photo-ablation. In order to produce deep cuts, hundreds of successive laser pulses are focused onto the surface.
Moving the wafer under a rapidly pulsed, focused laser beam produces an extremely narrow ‘V’ shaped cut, the depth of which is controlled by the scan speed. Typically, these cuts terminate 30-50% into the thickness of the wafer. After laser scribing, the wafer is fractured using standard cleaving equipment. The ‘V’ shaped laser cuts act as stress concentrators, inducing well-controlled fracturing with excellent die yield.
Efficient photo-ablation is preferred for laser scribing and depends strongly on two properties of the UV laser light: wavelength and pulse duration. In general, photo-ablation benefits from shorter laser wavelength and shorter pulse duration for both optical and thermal reasons. In the formula, E=h(c/λ), the photon energy, E, is inversely proportional to λ, the photon wavelength. Simply put, shorter wavelengths impart more energy per photon. The benefits achieved by short laser wavelengths include improved optical absorption, reduced absorption depth, lower irradiance required for ablation, and reduced cut width. In the formula, I=E/At, the irradiance, I, is proportional to pulse energy, E, and inversely proportional to both beam area, A, and pulse duration, t. As a result, short pulse durations result in higher irradiances for a given spot size and pulse energy. Also, short pulses deliver successful ablation at larger spot sizes on target, resulting in more rapid cutting. The benefits achieved by short laser pulse duration include increased irradiance on target, and reduced heat transfer to the substrate due to more rapid absorption and ablation.
In silicon carbide, optical wavelengths below 370 nm have photon energies that exceed the bandgap of the material, resulting in direct photon absorption. For example, the photonic energy of a DPSS 355 nm solid state laser beam (3.5 eV) is higher than the highest bandgap of silicon carbide (3.27 eV for 4H polytype), resulting in strong absorption followed by ablation. Sapphire, conversely, has a bandgap (9.9 eV) that is higher than the photon energy of commercially-available UV lasers, for example, an F2 laser at 157 nm (7.9 eV). In such cases, multi-photon absorption can induce efficient optical absorption and the necessary irradiance (W/cm2) for multi-photon absorption can be very high. The efficiency of multi-photon absorption in sapphire is strongly wavelength-dependent. Shorter wavelengths are absorbed more completely in sapphire, resulting in less heat input to the bulk material. For photo-ablation to occur, light that is absorbed must impart sufficient energy to vaporize the material. The threshold irradiance for ablation is also strongly wavelength-dependent. The higher photon energy and smaller absorption depth of shorter optical wavelengths result in ablation at lower irradiance levels.
As compared to the sapphire, compound semiconductor substrates usually have lower bandgap energy, such as GaN (3.3 eV), GaP (2.26 eV) and GaAs (1.42 eV). Although coupling of a UV laser at 266 nm is efficient on these substrates, excessive photonic energy under this strong absorption can result in unnecessary thermal conduction to the substrates, causing heat related damages. In contrast, insufficient laser energy density can result in improper ablation, even with the strong absorption. Thus, an optimum laser energy density or irradiance is an important factor in laser scribing, which leads to a higher scribing speed and/or maximized productivity.
Among UV lasers, excimer lasers generate the most power output, e.g., nearly 100 watts in the deep UV range. These advantages have made the excimer laser uniquely suited for hard LED wafer scribing. Scribing using excimer laser technology has involved the delivery of a line beam or series of line beams onto an LED wafer, which is translated by a controlled motion stage to be diced in a desired direction. Excimer laser scribing, for example, using KrF 248 nm light output, utilizes a near-field imaging technique through which a patterned laser beam is projected from a mask. Thus, the delivery of a line beam has been achieved by line-patterned mask projection. One example of the use of excimer laser patterned projections is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,413,839, incorporated herein by reference. In this patent, a single line beam and multiple line beams are projected onto a sapphire wafer with blue LEDs.
When using a mask with excimer laser projection techniques, the modification of a patterned beam is relatively simple and is achieved by changing the shape of the mask. For example, the narrow line beam for scribing (i.e., usually in tens of microns) is projected by a slit mask. However, the slit mask transmits the laser beam only through an open area of the mask. Thus, introducing the mask in a beam delivery system (BDS) blocks a major portion of the laser beam, which makes the beam utilization factor (BUF) low. This low beam utilization factor limits the speed of the scribing process, because the scribing speed is mainly proportional to the size of the projected beam in the scribing translation direction.
Recently, developments in UV solid-state laser technology have resulted in DPSS lasers with sufficient average power to be considered for the scribing of hard compound semiconductor wafers, such as those made of sapphire and silicon carbide. A few laser manufacturers have developed the third harmonic (355 nm) and the fourth harmonic (266 nm) DPSS lasers with a gain medium for Nd3+ ions doped in a yttrium\crystalline matrix (Nd:YVO4 or Nd:YAG). These frequency-multiplied DPSS lasers demonstrate significant improvements in pulse duration, frequency and power output. For example, UV solid-state lasers running at the third harmonic (355 nm) now achieve average powers of over 5 Watts, and the fourth harmonic (266 nm) lasers achieve average powers of over 2.5 Watts. Also, these lasers offer short pulse durations, e.g., below 20 nanoseconds. UV solid-state lasers with short wavelength and pulse duration (e.g., less than 15 nanoseconds) can create extremely high irradiance, e.g., over 109 W/cm2, resulting in instantaneous vaporization by photonic bombardment. This extreme irradiance of frequency-multiplied DPSS lasers makes the separation of the hard substrate possible. For an example, although the sapphire has a high optical transmissivity to UV wavelengths, this extreme temporal and spatial concentration of photons results in effective multi-photon absorption, causing ablation.
Generally, UV solid-state lasers generate a circular Gaussian beam in TEM00 mode and current methods of UV solid-state laser scribing utilize a focused circular beam spot. Unlike an excimer laser BDS, DPSS lasers utilize far field imaging, which does not require patterned mask imaging. Examples of laser scribing using far field imaging are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,631,190 and U.S. Pat. No. 6,580,054, incorporated herein by reference. The raw beam from the laser resonator is directly focused by a beam-focusing lens and is delivered to the target. The BUF is higher because the BDS for a DPSS laser utilizes the full beam. The scribing speed is slower, however, due to the small size of the focused beam spot, which is one drawback of the application of the DPSS laser to mass-production. Also, the conventional beam delivery system used in a DPSS laser has a limited ability to control the adjustment of laser processing parameters. In the conventional scribing techniques using DPSS lasers, laser processing parameters are controlled by adjusting laser output power and the directed laser light is not modified.
In general, laser beams must be focused for laser material processing applications. A focused laser beam has two important characteristics; 1) optimum laser intensity (usually expressed by the laser energy density J/cm2) for a target material, and 2) minimum size of a focused spot or a beam waist diameter. The optimum laser intensity is important to achieving a desired processing result, because either excessive or insufficient laser intensity will introduce imperfections into the process. In addition, the focused beam spot should have sufficient flexibility to adjust its intensity, since the optimum intensity is determined by the light absorption properties of the particular target material. The minimum size of a beam waist diameter is important when laser material processing requires a sharply focused beam for fine resolution.
Another issue with laser scribing processes is caused by the ablation induced debris generated along the wake of the cut. The debris on the semiconductor dies or LED dies are detrimental to both their performance and packaging. Photoresists for lithography have been applied on substrate surfaces for the protective coating to prevent the debris, but the photoresist tends to be carbonized by the heat from the laser induced plasma. The carbonized photoresist is hard to remove, especially near the laser cuts. Adhesive tapes have also been proposed as protection, but related procedures, such as changing the adhesive tape after scribing in every single direction, are not conducive to mass production. In addition, excessive amounts of residue remained after the laser scribing because of the high thickness of the tape together with the adhesive.
Accordingly, there is a need for a laser scribing system and method that avoids the drawbacks of the existing techniques, is capable of using shorter wavelengths and pulse duration, and is capable of optimizing laser intensity and minimizing beam waist diameter.